Manual of toxicology : reprinted from Witthaus' and Becker's medical jurisprudence, forensic medicine and toxicology / by R.A. Witthaus.

Rudolph August Witthaus

Date:: 1911

Credit: Manual of toxicology : reprinted from Witthaus' and Becker's medical jurisprudence, forensic medicine and toxicology / by R.A. Witthaus. Source: Wellcome Collection.

19/1280 (page 7)

$the word “toxicology,” common to most modern languages, is derived. ‘ Hecate, the daughter of Perseus, is said by Diodorus Siculus to have been skilled in the preparation of poisons; to have discovered that called aconite,^ and to have tested the virtues of her preparations by mixing them with the food of her guests. Having acquired great experience in the art, she poisoned her husband. Her daughters, Circe and Medea, also became pro- ficient in toxicology, and the former profited by her mother’s example, and removed her husband by the same means.^ To protect himself from the poisons and spells of Circe, Ulysses obtained from Hermes an herb with black root and milk-white flower, which acted as a narcotic.^ In the historical period there are numerous evidences of an early knowledge of the action of poisons among the Greeks and neighboring nations. It is related by Plutarch® that Alexander the Great (b. c. 333) drank the medicine offered by his physi- cian, Philip, and recovered, although he had been warned that Philip had been bribed to poison him. Xenophon (ca. b. c. 400) relates that the use of poison was so frequent among the Medes that it was an ancient custom for the cup-bearers to taste of the wine before presenting it to the king, and that among the Persians the children were instructed in the proper- ties of plants that they might know which were deleterious.® Of the fifteen orations of Antiphon (born ca. b. c. 480) one was in the matter of an accusation of poisoning.^ Among the Athe- nians an indictment for poisoning (<f>ap/x,aKiov vel ^ap/iaKetas ypa<^rj) was tried before the Areiopagus, and a malicious intent was a necessary ingredient of the crime, for which the punishment was death. Women appear to have been most addicted to the crime of poisoning in the Grecian period, as they are at the ' T6|o(', a bow; to^ik6s, for the bow; from which Dioscorides (Alexiph., XX.) derived the name To^iKdf {(pdpuaKov) to apply to the poison with which the barbarians smeared their arrows. ^ Whether this was the plant now known under this name or some other (possibly conium) is not known. The Latin writers used the word to refer to poisonous plants in general (Virgil, “Geor.,” ii., 152). ^Diodorus Siculus, “Hist.,” iv., 45. “Od.,” X., 305; v., 236. Theo- phrastus and Dioscorides consider this pSAv to have been a species of garlic. Pliny, “ Hist. Nat.,” xxv., 8. ^ “ Vit. Alexandri,” c. 19. ® “Cyropsedia,” i., 3; viii., 8. ’’ Karriyopla <papp.aKhas Kara ri]s p,-qTpvia^. •$